Practices

Antitrust & Competition

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP serves an antitrust world without borders with a well-integrated team of competition lawyers in the United States and Europe and with contacts throughout Asia and Latin America.

The leadership and excellence of our Antitrust Practice Group has been recognized by Chambers and Global Counsel for years. “It is a superb team” and a “greatly respected practice,” clients have reported. “The attorneys are conscientious, systematic, hard-working and genuinely committed to winning.” The group has “impressed clients with its depth of antitrust litigation experience” and is “well integrated” across offices and jurisdictions. In Europe, with offices in Brussels, Paris, London and Frankfurt, we are “the name on everyone’s lips,” and are headed by “one of the leading figures” in the area.

Our antitrust team assists clients in expanding their businesses while minimizing legal risks. We have represented a global client base in national and international merger filings, U.S. and European investigations of all forms of anticompetitive activity, class action and private litigation, and business ventures in multiple jurisdictions. We have acted in a host of sectors, including financial services and consulting, business and financial information, media, e-commerce, hedge funds and private equity, pharmaceuticals, transports, energy, telecommunication, retail apparel, industrial and chemical manufacturing, and satellite communications.

Areas of Antitrust Experience

Mergers

Willkie’s merger experience spans a wide range of industries and every stage of the merger-review process. Whether navigating merger clearances in multiple jurisdictions, negotiating remedies, assessing the risk of antitrust enforcement, negotiating risk-sharing provisions, or representing third parties, businesses have relied on Willkie to achieve their objectives.

Litigation

Willkie has litigated in the United States, in Europe, and Canada, in class action and private litigation, or contentious regulatory proceedings, and across a broad spectrum of industries.

Cartels, Joint Conduct, and Other Investigations

Cartel investigations are increasingly conducted by regulators across the globe. Willkie provides multi-jurisdictional representation and has handled all aspects of cartel enforcement.

Pricing and distribution are at the center of antitrust analysis and can raise novel issues. Willkie helps clients navigate the antitrust implications of their business arrangements.

Benchmarking

Exchanging information across an industry can be an effective tool for business planning. Willkie can help clients develop frameworks through which companies can share information effectively within the parameters of antitrust law.

Compliance & Training

Willkie’s antitrust team remains ready to help clients assess their businesses and adapt to constant changes in the regulatory environment and commercial landscape. We work closely with clients to formulate compliance and training programs that advance their business models.

State Aids

In Europe, a significant part of the team’s activities relates to state aids for which it enjoys a first-class reputation: it has advised on several undertakings in both administrative and contentious proceedings in the fields of energy, media, and retail banking before both the European Commission and Community courts.

Financial Services Consulting

Marsh & McLennan

We represent March & McLennan in dozens of cases brought by both private plaintiffs and state attorneys general alleging violations of the antitrust laws in federal and state courts across the country.

MasterCard

We represent MasterCard in the settlement of the interchange-fee class actions, the disputes regarding that settlement, and the numerous opt-out cases. The interchange-fee litigation has been described as the largest in the history of the Sherman Act.

Business and Financial Information

Bloomberg

Hedge Funds and Private Equity

Silver Lake

We represent Silver Lake Technology Management in defense of a putative class action brought by shareholder plaintiffs who claim that various private equity firms conspired to constrain the share price of public companies purchased through a leveraged buy-out.